34 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



our way home, we consoled ourselves by the hope that we 

 should certainly find these same harts next day in Scalastal 

 wood. 



When the wind is north, the south passes of course guard 

 the extensive oak copse of Scalastal. They are four in number, 

 nearly in line. As the wood hangs on a hillside, the passes 

 rise one above the other, and were known to us as the high 

 pass, the middle pass, the low pass, and the lowest pass. 

 Attended by the grieve, to point out the ground, we scaled the 

 hill, directing the shepherds to allow us twenty minutes' law, 

 before throwing the dogs into the low side copse- wood flanked 

 by the burn. I preferred the middle pass (medio tut., &c.), my 

 eldest son the high one (excelsior), his brother the highest he 

 could get (!), and the lowest was left to itself and the deer. 



Both my sons had taken their ground, but the overseer was 

 in the act of pointing out mine, when the lugubrious tones of 

 the Ugly Buck swelled out in the wood close beneath. In an 

 instant a hart burst from the thicket, and ran past at a sling 

 gallop. " Noo, sir," from behind me certainly a thoughtless 

 hint, which has coaxed many a young sportsman into a dead 

 miss. Fortunately, in this instance, the shooter was old and 

 callous, so he took his time, and the hart fell dead in the 

 heather. " Look oot, sir, for anither." The second warning 

 fully atoned for the first. It was scarcely given when another 

 hart galloped fair across our path, and he also rolled head over 

 heels on the hillside. My favourite " Henry " rifle was loaded 

 again in a twinkling, but no more deer turned out, neither did 

 any try my sons' ground ; but we heard from a neighbouring 

 shepherd that a third hart had sneaked out at the rejected pass. 

 The two killed were exactly the same weight, 15 stone, and 

 both were shot through the shoulder, galloping, at 70 yards' 

 distance. 



The turnip-field was quiet enough to-night, and not a roar 

 heard far or near. Suspecting that " the lowest pass " fugitive 

 would return in the night to Scalastal wood in search of his 



